Wednesday, December 23, 2009

A new fragrance free. This is for a couple of my customers that have asked for a soap with no wheat germ oil, and no sweet almond oil. This one has olive oil, coconut oil, rice bran oil, grapeseed oil, and avocado oil. No nuts, no wheat. :)

I brought back Orange and Clove, this time with a bit of ground clove added. It smells delish!

Lemony Mint with Shea Butter. A great blend of orange, lemon, peppermint, and rosemary. Hmmmmm, nice! This is the soap I was in the process of cutting when my soap cutter bit the dust on me, so some of the soaps don't have as clean a cut as I like.

White Spice. This is an interesting fragrance. It's a very sharp spicy scent, sort of like sniffing a cup of hot orange spice tea.

Monday, December 14, 2009

There's Pomegranate Fig, which will be ready in about a week. And from the same soaping session, a new batch of Palmarosa Lavender.

Orange & Clove with shea butter, with more orange, less clove than my previous batches. And also with shea butter, a nice blend of lemon, orange, peppermint, and rosemary. This came out a lovely creamy yellow color. I can't wait to list it!

Monday, November 2, 2009

Today I get to pick a WINNER for my soap giveaway. I have gone to random.org, and used it to generate a random number for me. The number generated is number 8. So the WINNER of the giveaway goes to comment number 8. Which belongs to Ricki !! Ricki, come on down!! :)

Thank you to all who participated. I appreciate all the great comments about my soaps!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

**** This giveaway is now closed with 29 comments **** Winner to be announced momentarily ****

I am giving away one bar of soap (your choice!) to one lucky reader. To enter, just add a comment here with your email address (if you aren't registered with Blogger) and I will draw a lucky winner on Nov. 2 using random.org to pick the number. Whichever comment number matches the number I draw will be the WINNER! :)

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Sunday, October 11, 2009

My favorite soap recipe contains wheat germ oil, which my skin loves loves loves. My other two recipes, one with cocoa butter and the other with shea butter, contains sweet almond oil, which helps to add lather to a bar of soap, and is a great moisturizer.

But I have had a couple of customers ask for a soap with no nut oils, and no wheat germ oil, due to allergies. So I tweaked my recipe a little, and came up with a soap that contains olive oil, coconut oil (a seed, not a nut!), grapeseed oil, rice bran oil, and avocado oil. I made my full batch, which fills 2 molds, and split the batch. First batch, fragrance free. Right now it smells clean and sweet, due to the avocado oil. Second batch, colored with green clay and scented with a spruce needle and cedarwood essential oils blend. It smells just like a Christmas Tree! I just turned them out of the molds and so far, so good!! I will cut them tomorrow, and slice off a tiny sliver of each for me to try out. OH, sorry, I can try them out now, but everyone else will have to wait at least 3 weeks before I start selling them. :)

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

This past weekend, we did a three day craft show in Willcox, AZ. This was the Rex Allen Days festival in Willcox, AZ., which is a 90 mile drive from here. So we had reservations for Friday and Saturday night at the local Best Western.

We got up ultra early Friday morning, and left the house at around 5am, which put us in Willcox at around 6:30. Found our spot in Railroad Park and set up our tent. I had tons of soap, my lip balms, and some whipped shea butter. Ray had some of his photography.

Notice the train in the background? These trains went by about every 20-30 minutes, were about a mile long, and very very noisy!!!! They do not slow down at all, and they blow their whistle many times so people know they are coming! Made it very hard to do a decent sales pitch!

On one side of us was a vendor selling items made from the fleece of her alpacas. She brought along a couple of the animals with her. Look at these faces!! How cute are they!!!

The three day festival was all about cowboys. Rex Allen was a cowboy film star, songwriter, and singer from Willcox, and he was known as the Arizona Cowboy. His horse, KoKo, is buried beneath the large bronze in Railroad Park.

There were a lot of folks around in period costumes. The most predominate was Lee Anderson and his horse Concho. Lee is an Educational Living History Re-enactor, located in Central Arizona, and known as The Vaquero. He has written articles on the subject of the 1880's Mexican cowboy. Concho is a thoroughbred that Lee rescued after Concho sustained career ending injuries in a racing accident. Lee helped him heal and trained him. And my oh my what a show off that horse is! Lee rode around the park all day Friday, and Concho was perfectly happy to prance and twirl around for everyone.

Here's Lee and Concho with one of the other "actors", must be a bank robber!

And a couple of other folks in costume.

Although there was plenty of entertainment around, there was not much for customers. As a vendor, it was a dismal day. But we were very hopeful for Saturday, because the Rex Allen Days big parade comes right down Railroad Ave. So even though Friday was a bust as far as sales goes, we figured we would make up for it on Saturday. We closed up shop around 5pm, grabbed some supper at the motel restaurant, and crashed. I slept like a log!!

We woke up around 5am, and Ray informed me that it looked like it had been raining a lot. The tent is waterproof, and Ray had packed up all his photography, but you can never be sure if things are going to survive a rain storm. So we got ready, had our breakfast, and headed over to Railroad Park. WELL, my goodness, such goings on! My neighbor on one side had a canopy with no sides, that she left up with gallon water jugs as weights. Her canopy was blown over the fence and almost on the railroad tracks! Our tent, which is weighted with 20lb weights on each leg, plus Ray had bungeed the inside middle of the tent to his photography display which is pretty heavy, was blown 3 feet backwards! So one of the tables which I had left my soap on, covered with just a flannel sheet, was almost exposed! Yikes! Hurried into the tent, the flannel sheets were a little damp, but the soap was ok. Phweew!!

Ray helped our neighbor retrieve her canopy, and we got our set up all arranged and ready. Ray decided NOT to put out his photography, because it was still wet, drizzling, and windy. And it was COLD. So we left three of the tent sides in place, to keep out rain and wind. Our neighbor had her two little grand daughters with her, 3 and 5 years old. She kept trying to bundle them up and keep them warm, I told them to come into my tent until the rain stopped. So I had 2 little bouncing cutie pies in my tent for awhile. :) Didn't sell anything in the cold windy morning. The parade got started at 10am, and Railroad Ave was fully lined with folks (I'll list a link to Ray's blog with lots of parade pics).

So Ray sat up on the sidewalk to get pictures, and I stayed back at the tent to keep an eye on things. I could see most of the parade, except for the little Shriner cars. The sidewalks on both side of the road were lined with people at least 2 deep. When the parade ended, I hurried back into the tent, and got ready. Figured oh, good! here they come! So all these people watching the parade, turned and headed right for me, then went right by me to the parking lot. And they were gone!

Now we knew this couldn't be good. There were a few folks that stayed around and did some shopping, but not many. We decided NOT to stay the night, because we knew that Sunday there would be even fewer folks. We started packing up around 2:30. Once packed up, we went to the motel, packed our suitcase and checked out, and came home.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

I have a few craft shows lined up for the fall. The first one is a three day show, in Willcox, AZ. It's for the 58th Annual Rex Allen Days, Oct. 2, 3, and 4. Vendor booths will be set up along Railroad Avenue in front of the Rex Allen Museum. Some of the activities include a parade, western music festival, tractor pull, a carnival, classic cars. Here's a link: Rex Allen Days. Should be a hoot ! :)

On October 24th, I'll be at the Tucson Estates Foothills Craft Show. Nice little inside show at the rec hall in the development my mom lives in.

October 30, 31, November 1 I'll be at the 19th Annual Southwest Flair A-Fair Benefitting Big Brothers Big Sisters of Tucson, at Plaza Palomino here in Tucson. This is a good show, for a good cause. 15% of my proceeds go to BBBS.

On Nov. 7, I'll be at the Painted Sky Artisan and Craft show at the Painted Sky Elementary School in Oro Valley.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Karley has blogged about some of my fall soaps on her blog, Chic & Green. I can't begin to tell you how much I have appreciated Karley and her wonderful support for my soaps over the past year and a half. And if you want to keep in touch with all things green, check her blog on a regular basis. She will tell you the good and the bad in store-bought cosmetics, she will give out little DIY recipes for your own skin care, and for household cleaning. She likes to highlight independent craft businesses. She'll tell you about her two boys, Nick and Ben. She also has an online facial care store, called KZM Facial Care Boutique which has some really great products!!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Starting this fall Ray will be making available for sale some of the photos that he likes best. They will come in two forms which include mounted, matted and framed using archival materials or mounted on archival mounting board ready for framing.

Most sales will be here locally in the Tucson area at craft shows but he will also offer sales online as well. He will show all works for sale on his blog The Sonoran Connection as they come available.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

I have a few soaps on the curing rack, and one just taken out of the mold. Would you like to take a look?

Hawaiian Citrus Spa: A lightly salted soap to add a touch of spa to your bath. Oils used are olive oil, coconut oil, sweet almond oil, grapeseed oil, and wheat germ oil. Scented with essential oils of grapefruit, orange and May Chang. And an added bonus, a bit of Alaea Hawaiian Red Salt. Alaea salt has been used for centuries in Hawaiian blessing ceremonies. Naturally red from the volcanic clay in the sea, islanders use the salt to purify, cleanse and release toxins from the body.

Goat Milk Oatmeal and Honey: This is a restock, one of my more popular goat milk soaps. Made with olive oil, coconut oil, grapeseed oil, organic canola oil, rice bran oil, wheat germ oil, goat milk, natural desert honey, and very finely ground oatmeal. This soap is great for sensitive skin types.

Gingersnap: A fall favorite. The house smelled like I'd been baking all day after I poured this one! Made with olive oil, coconut oil, sweet almond oil, grapeseed oil, wheat germ oil, and Gingersnap fragrance oil. With just a touch of ground cinnamon. Kids always love this one at the farmers market.

Pomegranate Fig: A new fall fragrance for me. A very sweet scent which I'm sure will be a hit. Made with olive oil, coconut oil, sweet almond oil, grapeseed oil, wheat germ oil, and Pomegranate Fig fragrance oil. The pretty pomegranate red swirls are made with rose clay.

Chai Tea with Shea Butter: A wonderful unisex scent, this soap should catch the attention of both men and women. Made with olive oil, coconut oil, shea butter, rice bran oil, castor oil, and Chai Tea fragrance oil. I just cut this one this morning, so you can see how the center is a different color than the outside. This is normal and after a day or so, the color will even out as the air flows around it.

Autumn Harvest Mix: And last, but certainly far from least, my once a year Autumn Harvest Mix just turned out of the molds, waiting to be cut. Made with olive oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter, sweet almond oil, and castor oil. I added some soap shreds of different colors .... blue from my Blue Maritime, green from my Rosemary Mint with a Splash, red from my Rose Clay Facial. Then I added some pumpkin puree. And for fragrance, a mix of Pumpkin Spice, Gingersnap, and Apple Jack & Peel. Yeah, Baby!!!!!!!